For as long as there has been a desire or need for uniformity in appearance among groups of individuals, there has been a need to create uniforms and garments with a comparable, similar, or even identical appearance. With the advent of such uniforms and garments, there has also arisen the need to establish improved systems and methods for manufacturing components of the uniforms and garments. The commensurate need has also been perceived for improved uniforms and garments and components thereof that are easier to assemble, don, and that are more comfortable and functional for purposes of their intended use in service.
After use, the uniforms, garments, and components thereof must be removed, cleaned, and prepared for the next use. Those having skill in the relevant arts have over time identified various time and cost elements associated with the manufacture, use, cleaning, and servicing of the many types of such garments and uniforms that have come to find widespread utility across many industries and activities. In the uniform supply, cleaning, and delivery fields, loss prevention has gained considerable attention, especially in industries where bulk quantities of uniforms are prepared, delivered, cleaned, and returned to users.
Significant losses presently occur not only during transit mishaps, but also due to intentional separation of upper and lower uniform components during shift changes and during operation to address accidental soiling in use wherein the use will replace only an upper or a lower component.
Uniform-type garments and apparel and the components thereof that are supplied en masse to large organizations must usually be sized and fitted in advance of delivery and wear to suit the particular corporeal characteristics of the individual executive chefs and other members of the team and or organization. In one likely set of circumstances, an upper torso uniform component and a lower waist-leg uniform component are sized and matched for delivery to and to be worn by the target individuals to ensure comfortable fit and wear during use.
Those operating in the field of art have long known that many variables in the preparation and delivery process can impact whether the correct sizes of the uniform components are delivered to intended individuals. Often times, upper and lower components will be matched before delivery, but become disassociated during transit and or after delivery such that the intended individuals are inconvenienced because they do not receive the correct sizes. This results in worker discontent and discomfort, which can impact productivity.
In many organizations, such problems can at best diminish the effectiveness of a team of individuals. In one of many possible team environment examples, an executive chef team or kitchen staff of a restaurant can experience problems where spirited personal egos amplify otherwise ordinary frustration into disruptive behaviors, which can result in less than optimum timeliness and product quality.
The need to optimize the use of time and to minimize resource costs and end user problems in making and using such uniforms and garments continues to spur innovation and developments in the corresponding technology areas. Of the many aspects of such uniforms and garments that are susceptible to further improvements, those that continue to receive substantial attention include comfort, ease of donning, functionality for intended purpose, ease of removal, ease of cleaning, and ease of preparation for reuse.
In the upper scale food preparation service industries, it is common for the organization to maintain an inventory of uniforms and garments for the food preparation and delivery service staff to don during operation. Many suppliers and vendors service this field with pre-manufactured uniforms that include, for purposes of example without limitation, upper uniform components that can take various forms including double-breasted jackets, and lower uniform components that can include adjustable waist pants, aprons, shoe covers, and the like.
For a staff of 10 employees that includes an executive chef and various subordinate team members, the organization may instruct a supplier to periodically deliver a one or two week supply of uniforms for its team. In this way, each member can have a clean uniform for each day of operation, with perhaps one or two extra for exceptional circumstances where a uniform becomes soiled in use. The supplier will usually arrange the size of its inventory to accommodate the periodicity of the inventory delivery to the customer organization so that the supplier can pick up the soiled uniforms for cleaning and servicing at the same time the next period's supply of clean uniforms is delivered.
In such situations, the supplier can experience many variables that may present problems for the customer organization wherein upper and lower components can be mismatched during cleaning and reassembly for the next rotation of inventory with the customer organization. One common method employed to control such variables has been for the supplier or its manufacturer to physically join the upper and lower components, which reduce the mismatch problem. However, this approach can inject its own set of variables and problems.
While many attempts have been made to improve various aspects of the state of the art of such uniforms and garments, four attempts in recent years appear to describe the cumulative efforts. For example, one attempt that has been made to address one of the problems with such uniforms and garments in the restaurant industry is described by Bruno Berni in U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,565 in 1994 (see also his U.S. Pat. No. D355,295 of 1995). Berni's clothing garment is limited to a jumpsuit configuration having a preattached apron, which together are primarily focused on improving the user's tolerance to cold and hot exposure as the user moves between hot kitchen and cold refrigerator food service areas.
An additional jumpsuit configuration is explained by Mr. Gregory Pontes et alia in U.S. Pat. No. 6,412,115 B1 in 2002, wherein a lightweight disposable protective coverall garment contemplates a reduction in materials subject to waste disposal. The Pontes et al. coverall also attempts to persuade that upper body sleeve portions of the garment should present an advantage if attached with a specific angular range of motion to an upper portion of the garment. Another previous endeavor of Alberto Martinez is explained in U.S. Pat. No. 6,567,989 B1 in 2003 wherein a protective garment is illustrated. However, the Martinez protective garment is restricted to a torso portion connected to a lower leg portion that is adapted to form an apron type leg protective element.
Despite the putative innovations of the previously described prior art attempts, much room for improvement remains and many problems and difficulties continue to challenge the manufacturers, suppliers, and customer end-users of uniforms and garments described above. Even though many individuals have sought to inject their improvements in the main stream of the instant uniform and garment industry, to date, all such attempts are mostly either expensive and cumbersome to implement and use with limited improvements in capability, or they simply do not address the many other persistent challenges.
The instant invention and its many possible alternative preferred embodiments address many of the short-comings of the prior art that remain: ease of use, cost to implement and maintain in service, and the reduction of the costs associated with the various problems described above. The various preferred embodiments of the invention described here address these and many other prior art difficulties with heretofore unavailable arrangements of components and new and novel configurations.
In particular, the instant invention and its various embodiments contemplate that what has been needed and unavailable is a more efficient arrangement of uniform and garment components that can easily reduce mismatch and loss. Even so, this improved benefit must still be constrained by the requirement for uniform-type garments and apparel that remain cost-effective to manufacture, and yet, which remain functionally reliable and easy-to-use in a variety of operational environments.
The instant invention addresses such needs, and accomplishes its new and novel improvements in the state of the art, without modification to the presently acceptable manufacturing, use, and maintenance cost models, and without increased difficulties in the preparation, delivery, wear, removal, and cleaning and servicing aspects of various implementations.